Haha, NICE ONE ANET!

As a PvE Me/R, using Domination and Beast Mastery, the fact that my pet doesn't take DP allows me to actually stay alive. I can be casting Empathy or Backfire while simultaneously calling Beast Attacks helps. But I know that I'm not going to be nearly as effective with pet DP.

This thread, particularly the posts in it relating to IWAY, actually made me a little bit sad in real life.

T_T

Why, because IWAY got a slight buff?

The design of pets is basically flawed and very very hard to address. It's not just a problem of pet control and AI. Your pet is your weapon, but it's a second weapon, a moving weapon, and a half-autonomous weapon. The ranger + pet symbiosis is basically a character with two different weapons, double HPs (two damage buffers), double mobility, not to mention bonds (HP/dmg transfer from one pool to the other) and buffs "as one" (two buffs for the price of one skill). Worse, pet skills have been overbuffed to make up for the lack of intelligence of your pets and it's too easy to abuse this.

As a result, killing a decent beast master can be a real nightmare in some PvP environments. Either you concentrate on the pet, and you face multiple pet resurrects plus extra annoyance from the ranger's own attacks. Or you concentrate on the ranger and his pet will do damage, interrupts, k/d and so on...

The difficult equation is that :

1. a decent but unexceptional investment in your pet and in BM is enough to be a serious annoyance in PvP (or a serious bonus in PvE, like for barragers)
2. a fully equipped beastmaster is arguably weaker than most popular or basic builds because you lack some pet intelligence, flexibility and control

As mentioned by Locust and Makkert, the DP ninja update was implemented to fix #1. Unfortunately the fix is seriously over the top.

• Firstly it makes pets almost useless for bunny thumpers and other "half beast masters", even with a non trivial investment of two skills and 10+ attribute points. Each time your paper-thin pet dies, you lose adrenaline, the ability to use your skills, and to apply pressure. Repeatedly killing the pet is the best way to hamper the ranger. Simply put, it's probably much wiser to leave your pet at home or to use it as a sacrifice fodder (Coward, IWAY...).
• Seconly it makes #2 even worse, which is incredibly frustrating if you want to play a full beast master.

Improving the pet AI and control would certainly solve many issues, but not all of them. Epinephrine summarized them quite well here. The biggest complain is probably that pets are not a part of your party so many skills don't affect them, and most PuG monks tend to ignore them.

What would have been the best way to solve many PvP-related issues (IWAY, thumpers...)?

• Increase the casting time and fragility of pet resurrection skills and put them on par with standard resurrects
• Nerf/remove Revive Animal (mass-resurrect for pets) to disrupt degenerated group strategies
• If the pet DP is philosophically something that must be added then :
  - make pets real allies (targettable with standard resurrects, heal party and so on)
  or
  - scale the DP down with beast mastery (typically 15 per death at BM 10, and only 5 at BM 16)
  or
  - add an activable function to Charm (even if easily interruptible, expensive, slow, slow recharge...) to help make your pet more resilient without spending yet another skill slot on a stupid pet you can barely control... For instance something to remove 1-5% DP with each activation

But finding the best way to approach the bigger picture is very hard. It's not just a technical problem of skill slots, attributes or DP. Some of the toughest questions are :

• how to address the symbiosis and the duality between the pet and the ranger (pets are not just a weapon, they're moving, they have their own HP, they can serve as a cheap homing system for smiting or as meat shield for barrage...)
• are pets supposed to be reserved to primary rangers with high expertise and 16 bm? should they be usable and useful with a moderate investment or not ? (for instance, minion masters with only 10/12 death magic are worthless, but 8/9 in expertise is enough to get a decent effect)
• should pets be controllable extensions of the rangers, or half random creatures like minions?
• should pets be disposable/resurrectable creatures, or something more resilient that the team should want to keep alive?

Problem is, none of these questions is trivial, and the implications on the whole attribute line, and more generally on the overall metagame are very deep. That's why I agree with Epinephrine and I believe ANet's approach will remain very conservative on this problem. I expect a couple of minor changes to accommodate verbal Best Masters, but not much more because it's probably too complex and too risky. However may be a future new profession will use a variant of pets, and this tricky balance problem will be re-examined.

There cannot be a more useless skill then "Otyugh's Cry". I'm pretty sure this is how the spell reads: "All non-charmed animals around you become aggresive to the enemy you're fighting (for some amount of time or something like that)." HOW OFTEN DO YOU FIND UNCHARMED ANIMALS!?!? EVEN IF YOU DID, THEY WOULD BE LEVEL 5! Great skill, control a level 5 wolf for 20 seconds to help you kill some level 24 enemies!

Probably not, taking into account that

a) until recently pets didn't get DP and thus no morale boost and that this change just feels like a quick-fix (Gaile didn't know about it) and
b) I never saw any post that indicates that pets get morale boosts

I'll take it for granted that the devs 'forgot' about morale boosts and compensating DP for pets (and other allies).

Edit:
You didn't read it well, or you forgot the +20 AL part. That would make it a great skill if it didn't require untamed animals to be somewhere in the area as 'target'

If they do that then they nerf their own pre-made build, Fang of Melandru, I don't think they are going to do that. I don't see what is wrong with touchers or bunny thumpers. Touchers are easily killed if you know what your doing. Slow down spells, diversion, heavy degen, interrupts (hard to do), backfire sometimes even works on them (if they are stupid enough to use OoB when it is on them). The reason they are so good is because in the midst of battle no one takes the time to run away from them when they get crippled. Bunny thumpers are also easily killed and they should get a nerf. So they are used a lot of GvG now adays, that is probably because of the smiting monks rise. Either way both builds are not hard to kill as long as you are prepared to fight them.

I will admit touchers do get annoying, especially when a group of four comes chasing after you .

Actually, it doesn't require untamed animals to be in the area. It requires you to be in spell range of some enemy.

What stops it being a great skill for me is that you have to be near the pets for them to get the bonus, and normally I'm standing longbow distance away from my pet while it kills my target for me. Having to move closer than my longbow range even if my pet's next to me is also annoying.

Ah, ok, I'll give it some more thoughts and experiments then, +20AL is a good reason.

Ok... Let me try to explain this as best I can...

When your pets die, they get DP.
The purpose of IWAY is to let their pets die.
Once they are dead, IWAY lets them stay dead.

Make sense?

That I need to give a reason is the scary part. I'm beginning to wonder if the people who incessantly complain about IWAY have ever touched GW PvP.

Oh noes! A typical elitist pvper!

While i was reading all this posts all i hear Nerf touchers, nerf Thumpers...( most of it is just repeating of something already mentioned )...

Few month ago it was nerf IWAY, wariors,.. eles r too strong... and after devs did something about ballancing something else came out that was waaay overpowerd...

So the problem is there will never be exact balance unless u start fighting with sticks with 0 energy many pool and 0 attribs...

I belive there is no point in all this "nerfing" this and that build because after each nerf there will be another class which will take advantage over other classes...
Its just neverending walking in circles wich cause all the flaming on the forums... More u fix it worse it gets...

This thread shall henceforth be known as the clash of the egos... continue as you were, ladies.

wait 1 second!

a beast master run normally 12-14 in beast mastery

that mean a 90-100 hp heal each 1 second , energy is not a probrem since thumber normaly have enough.

that is more the enough for the casual damage your pet receive.

if instead the enemy target the pet , they are not targeting someone else so the monk can heal it.

where is the probrem? is too hard to remember to use confort animal?

until now there was no reason to kill the pet since they get free ressed by confort , now there is a decent reason ...

Lol, agreed, knock down the non-believers so Chapter 3 can be more open to those veterans who love the game.

Iono, I always thought the pets having no dp made up for them for being dumb as rocks(why cant they atleast have henchie A.I. and change targets when I do?)... but now there is even less of a reason to play one...

Well, at the rate ANet is alienating players from GW, you might have chapter 3 all for yourselves, there might not be a chapter 4 so no worries there either.

lishi, a bunny thumper is not the only one who uses a pet, this is more of a downer to the real beastmaster then thumpers anyway. Secondly, no matter how much of the damageburden your pet takes, human monks do not heal them, even though they can. Thirdly, even with 14 expertise Ferocious Strike will not be able to keep up

There is no way to disengage, or otherwise control a pet (probably more of interest in PvE), it does not share morale boosts and can not get rid of it's DP as players normally can (and fast enough too).

This doesn't effect IWAY at all..for those that screamed that...DP means nothing if you are never rezzed...and IWAY don't rez their pets...So GG to all of those that don't have a lick of respect left because they maoned about IWAY Buff...

Also...This really doesn't hurt "True beastmasters" at all..its really a thumper thing. Thumpers think they should get the cake and get to eat it too.. Use ap et and have it PWN with Fero Strike and such, without dipping any of their resources into it.

God FORBID that someone actually has to take some protection for their pet to not get it killed...BM has some of the best protection in the game for your pet...including a Shout that gives it -15 dmg reduction for like a minute...

First of all, this effects "Real Beastmasters" a lot, mostly because apparently there's no way to heal the DP at all, but also because having your pet die messes you up pretty bad (8 second downtime on death, 8 second downtime on rez), and now they die more easily every time they die.
And Thumpers were never overpowered. From my experience, the very idea is rediculous. They do great damage and interrupts/knockdowns, but they have literally no means to heal themselves. touch rangers are way the hell more "overpowered", and they arent even getting adjusted, let alone nerfed to hell.

I seriously doubt dp does not affect "True" Beastmasters, even with the defense skills I pack(usualy cop with comfort) they usualy die, mostly because the animal refuses to stop attacking even after the target has kited him well beyond my reach.

(Quoted from another thread)
QFT, so now we have even less of a reason to use a bm outside of pve, "balance" ftw, eh?

Even though I like my Beastmaster, I realized before the update that it is crippled by the A.I. of the pet, and now that my pet will be penalized for not being able to break aggro due to an A.I. flaw seems ridiculus.

So my mesmer/ranger elder spider is now going to such hardcore. Time to get rid of it for a Dire one since I want more damage. Afterall, I want to deal as much damage as possible before dying. Heck, maybe even make a pet minion factory out of my 60% and -60 life spiders since they'll die so easily heh.

Your post tells me you aren't a beastmaster at all anyway...As you lack common knowledge about pets. (There is no Downtime on the Rez anymore).

But I'll answer saying that first part...a "True" beastmaster can keep his pet up through all kinds of attacks...The only people that are complaining are the ones that want a second tank without having to invest in it. And that idea is absurd anyway..if you want the pet to do anything but die, you gotta make an investment in its survival.

Heres a list of what you can give your pet:
1) An unremovable 25% faster attacking 25% faster moving IN THE SAME SKILL with NO negative side effects...and can keep it up forever
2) A -15 dmg reduction that lasts for TWO MINUTES and is again unremovable. kept up all the time of course
3) A 30 second unremovable +20 armor that can again be kept up all the time.
4) A Mending+Life bond IN THE SAME SKILL, that lasts for over FIVE MINUTES without needing a reapply. Again unremovable and can keep up all the time.

I fail to see how someone that is investing in their pet could be having it die any faster than a human player...

That is unless the pet stays in range for repeated spikes...But a Human wouldn't last that either...so it isn't a fault of the pet.

What makes this even worse is that a morale boost does not take away your pet's DP. I also found that out while playing thumper in GvG. We held the stand the entire game and got 4-5 boost after 15 minute battle at the stand.

I didn't die that entire game and the pet would die in a few seconds from degen and a few hits.

Pets were only usable by one build: thumpers. So why make an entire skill line complete crap. Changing expertise to only affect ranger skills is not the answer to thumpers. Thumpers are used more for hammer bash if anything else. Changing expertise will not make a difference.

The pet has so many things going against it that giving it DP was a nail in the coffin.

Yes, people want a little tank running around for them... maybe some people use them for damage and Symbiotic Bond is an unwise skill for you if you are planning on using trolls even, seeing as that and pred bond are the rangers two most useful self heals(healing spring aside), if you and your pet are taking damage, you put yourself at even more risk, its a double edged sword.

And it is the fault of the A.I., you seem to fail to realize that they break aggro(unless you just mash on wasd, then they realize around 5-10 seconds after you flail around like an idiot that you arent attacking that target anymore) until the enemy is dead, or they realize you arent doing anything after awhile.

Well maybe they will tune down this DP a bit, I hope. Otherwise maybe make the pet lose DP 5 times faster than a player or sort. The pets are not bad themselves, just are too ...laggy to response.

This does affect beastmasters, more then it hurts thumpers, who are only interested in Ferocious Strike.

60% DP will hurt badly, it means a Dire pet may end up at 168 HP and no way to get rid of it, and yes, this will be exploited in PvP. If this is ANet's way of nerfing thumpers well, they just made an entire attribute line useless. And it doesn't even hurt thumpers.

What? Ignorance speaks from your posts, what makes you think I don't take CoP. Play a Beastmaster before you start writing nonsense about them. You mention some nice skills, now combine them in build that has practical application. SymBond requires some very decent selfheal, even with CoP, there are only 8 spots on your skillbar.

Play a true beastmaster first, before making comments such as this, since it is obvious that you've only looked at the skilllist without actually playing one.

Atm, they don't loose DP at all.